in Terms of the way
Police Response to Domestic Violence
in Terms of the way
Police Response to Domestic Violence
Domestic violence is one of the least reported crimes. The general consensus is that women are the only victims of domestic violence; however, men suffer from domestic violence too but like most women, they refrain from reporting, as a result, researches use their research to influence police and victims of domestic violence.
What is domestic violence? Domestic violence is any kind of assault physical or sexual that is perpetrated on a person by his or her intimate partner. Upon till the turn of the twenty-first century, domestic violence was not a phrase used by married women, especially if she were rich. Of course men would never even speak about it even in private. For a long time victims of domestic violence were afraid and embarrass to report crimes against them.. I (the client) once read somewhere where a man reports that his wife threatened him and gave her gun to the police; the police laugh at him, not long after he was killed by his wife. Cases like this and the fact that the police usually do not arrest the offender are the reasons domestic violence goes unreported.
“Twenty years ago, Lawrence Sherman and Richard Berk published experimental evidence from Minneapolis showing that arrest is an effective deterrent to domestic violence” (Felson, Ackerman, Gallagher, p.2, 2006). Even when police began to arrest the offenders the victims fear that their offender even if they were arrested. The offender are usually required to pay a small fine or a few months in jail and woe to the victim who sent them to jail. It is no secret that women have had to take drastic measures like relocating, sometimes cutting off ties with their family, to get away from their violent significant other. The above mentioned research has influenced reporting of domestic violence to some extent in that the police are trained to take domestic violence seriously; as a result victims feel safer and are more willing to report crimes against them. The research also states that some offenders may acknowledge their behavior as unacceptable once the police intervene; the presence of the police in their homes even if no arrest is made, is an embarrassment before their friends and family; and some offenders might be deterred by the threat of arrest (2). The fact that the police treat domestic violence as a crime is one of the reason that victims feel that they can report crimes against them. Sherman, and Brek states that “The approach recommended by many women’s groups and the Police Executive Research Forum (Loving, 1980) of treating the violence as a criminal offense subject to arrest” (1984, p.1).
Unfortunately these researches have only scratched the surface of domestic violence reporting; nonetheless, they set the pace and bring awareness that when reported, domestic violence will be treated like a crime. The following statistics will show that reporting of domestic violence is still in its infancy; only twenty-five percent of all physical, twenty percent of all rape, and fifty percent of all stalking are reported. Nearly fifty percent of protective orders issued to women were violated (National Coalition Against Domestic Violence). The police is educated about domestic violence but someone needs to educate the victims; and that is a daunting task because they suffer in silence and cannot be helped until they speak up. Domestic violence should be taught in schools in the tenth grade because aggressive boys become destructive men and girls who allowed themselves to be bullied are pruned to accept bad treatment from frpm their intimate other.
Domestic violence knows no boundary, creed or class. Sadly society has to admit that domestic violence is not an infectious disease that can be cured by the right antidote; it needs to be exposed regardless of status.
Bibliography
Felson, Richard B., Ackerman, Jeffery M., Gallagher, Catherine. “Police Intervention and the Repeat of Domestic Assault.”
Sherman, Lawrence W., Berk, Richard A. “The Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment,” Police Foundation Report
“Domestic violence Facts.” Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Retrieved from: http://www.ncadv.org/files/DomesticViolenceFactSheet(National).pdf
